It’s interesting to me that in the English language we have all sorts of sounds that our letters shouldn’t naturally make. We take words from other cultures–if cultures exist–and integrate them into our own without respect for whether or not these words are pronounceable given our previous set of sounds. And, rather than integrating new letters to represent these new sounds, instead we appraise our established set of letters and decide which one is closest.

Most people don’t write, yet, we refuse to change our written language because we imagine words to be something stagnant, constant, quantifiable. We imagine that we can put a o- next to a u- next to a g- next to an -h and we can learn to pronounce it the same way we always have, independent of the fact that we never have, that we pronounce things differently, all the time, over space.

Even more interesting to me: We generally ignore sounds we’ve used since the language first diverged from German.

And not just sounds we use every once in a while. I’m not talking about eñes or umlauts.

Get this: The schwa is the most common vowel in the English language.

Languages are the cornerstones of cultures–if they exist. How a given people interact with their given language tells you much about who they are, as a people.

So, what I’m saying is, extrapolate.

Extrapolate, people.